Philipp Liegl

Deriving executable BPEL from UMM Business Transactions

UN/CEFACTs modeling methodology (UMM) is a UML profile for modeling global B2B choreographies. The basic building blocks of UMM are business transactions, which describe the exchange of a business document and an optional response. In addition to these business document exchanges, UMM business transactions mandate business signals that acknowledge the correctness of business documents. It is expected that a business service interface (BSI) on each business partners side reacts on incoming messages and on messages expected but not received. However the internal orchestration of the BSI is open to interpretations. In this paper we demonstrate an unambiguous mapping from global choreographies described by UMM transactions to a BPEL-based orchestration of the business service interface. It becomes obvious that rather simple looking UMM transactions lead to a more complex message exchange mechanism when implemented on top of Web services.

Inter-organizational systems: From business values over business processes to deployment

Inter-organizational systems have significantly been affected by service-oriented architectures (SOA) and Web services - the state-of-the-art technology to implement SOA. SOA is said to enable quick and inexpensive changes of the IT in order to establish new business partnerships or to reflect changes in existing partnerships. However, current approaches to inter-organizational systems focus too much on existing Web Services standards and, thus, on the technology layer. In such an approach the technology drives the business. In this paper we analyze the shortcomings of this bottom-up approach. As an alternative we suggest a top-down methodology where the business requirements drive the technology. This methodology starts off with the business value perspective, leading to a business process perspective and resulting in an IT execution perspective. We do not invent any new approaches on each of these layers, rather we outline how existing approaches are used and combined into a business requirements driven approach to inter-organizational systems.

The Strategic Impact of Service Oriented Architectures

It has not been since the advent of the client/server architecture break through that an architectural concept has changed the face of enterprise systems so significantly as it has been done by service oriented architectures (SOA). The service oriented approach provides plenty of vantages for companies in regard to flexible system integration and adoption of new business cases. However, the adoption of SOA in an actual enterprise system brings along a couple of problems as well. Especially the integration into the existing infrastructure, applications and the innovation, sourcing and investment policies is challenging. A solution can be provided by establishing a SOA roadmap unveiling possible traps and pointing out the foibles and flaws still existing in the SOA approach. In this paper the SOA approach will be reviewed critically and the different sections affected within an enterprise will be examined. Possible problems during the transition and use of SOA will be identified. Where already possible, solutions will be provided. This paper is based on current research conducted during my PhD studies

The development process of the UN/CEFACT modeling methodology

The development of inter-organizational systems requires a well defined development process. UN/CEFACTs Modeling Methodology (UMM) provides such a development process. We served as the editing team of the UMM 1.0 foundation module, which is defined as a UML profile. First experiences of applying UMM in real world projects have disclosed some limitations. Accordingly, we propose integrating new concepts into a new version 2.0 of UMM. In this paper, we show the adapted UMM development process, which is demonstrated by means of a waste management example.

State-of-the-art in business document standards

With the raising significance of electronic commerce and e-government applications the need for standardized business documents has emerged. Today, a business partner seeking to implement a new electronic commerce solution may choose from a multitude of different standards. Most of the standards are domain-specific and thus heterogeneous, since standards are developed out of diverse needs, motivations, and backgrounds. What is still missing is a thorough overview of business document standard families. Furthermore, a classification helping a business partner to choose a specific standard, based on his preferences is needed. In this paper we present the key results of our business document survey, where we made a classification of business document standards using standard categories. For each category we introduce a representative standard example. Based on our research results, a clear and precise classification of different business document standardization approaches is provided. Through the classification, the distinctive advantages and disadvantages of each standard become clear. Thus, the decision which business document standard to use is eased.

UMM Add-In: A UML Extension for UN/CEFACT's Modeling Methodology

The tighter coupling of enterprises in regard to information system technology has also changed the way business processes are modeled. Modeling interorganizational business processes is necessary in order to gain a profound and unique representation of the processes involved. However this requires a new methodology especially designed for modeling inter-organizational business processes. The United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) took up the challenge and started to develop such a methodology. The research efforts became known as UN/CEFACTs modeling methodology (UMM) [1]. UMM enables the business modeler to capture the business knowledge independent of the underlying implementation technology such as ebXML or Web Services.

[vem:xi:] - A Methodology for Process Based Requirements Engineering

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) aim at the alignment of business and IT by having a clear business process-centric focus. In order to reach that goal, real-world business processes are captured by business process models. These models serve as the basis for the declarative configuration of a SOA using appropriate deployment artifacts - i.e., XML-based process languages. Consequently, requirements engineering for SOAs must focus on business processes and on their integration into systems using interoperable services, which is not the case for most conventional requirements engineering approaches. In this paper we present a requirements engineering approach specifically designed for the engineering of SOAs. Requirements are captured using a unified process, based on phases and iterations eventually leading to a formalized and unambiguous requirements specification. The final requirements specification can be used in succeeding development phases - i.e. for the model-driven generation of deployment artifacts for SOAs. The presented solution is called [vem: xi:] and is successfully used in the IT department of a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in Austria. In the highly volatile world of mobile communication the presented approach enables faster application development and faster integration of solutions, thus leading to a competitive advantage over other market participants.

A 3-level e-Business Registry Meta Model

Business partners willing to do business electronically with each other must reach an agreement (1) on the economic level, (2) on the inter-organizational process choreography, and (3) on the services implementing the choreography. In order to search for a potential business partner, one will first look for a partner who offers a required service on the economic level and who supports a complementary role in a choreography, before binding to its IT services. In as much, a registry for inter-organizational systems should cover all three levels and maintain the dependencies between them. In this paper we set up on well accepted approaches on the different levels, i.e. (1) the e3value ontology, (2) the UN/CEFACT modeling methodology (UMM), and (3) the business process execution language (BPEL). We specify a registry meta model on top of ebRIM registering the artifacts on the different levels and defining their inter-dependencies.

A UML Profile for Core Components and their Transformation to XSD

In business-to-business e-commerce, traditional electronic data interchange (EDI) approaches such as UN/EDIFACT have been superseded by approaches like web services and ebXML. Nevertheless, a precise and common semantic definition of business documents exchanged is needed. In order to become independent from a transfer syntax, we prefer defining the documents as platform independent models. An approach that follows this idea is the UN/CEFACTs core component standard. Core components are reusable semantic building blocks which can be combined in various ways to create shared libraries of interoperable business documents. In order to use standard UML modeling tools we have developed a UML profile for the core components standard. Furthermore, we adapt the UN/CEFACT naming and design rules for the UML profile in order to derive XML schemas for business document exchanges. The overall approach is demonstrated by using a specific example from the field of e-commerce.

On Mapping Business Document Models to Core Components

Today, there exists a huge variety of business document models for electronic data exchange among business partners used in business-to-business, business-to-government, as well as government-to-government business transactions. Thus, it becomes inevitable to process differing document models in daily business, unless a commonly agreed standard is developed. However, even if a commonly agreed standard exists, a multitude of different document definitions will still be existent in the short-term. Incompatibilities between old document formats and the newly introduced document models are the consequence.To cope with various document models and formats we propose a heuristic approach that leverages interoperability by mapping common document models to the conceptual Core Components model introduced by UN/CEFACT. To successfully complete this mapping task we define a set of rules that may be applied to XML Schema based document models.